There has been proposed having an agent on a power supply side request demand control for adjusting a power consumption amount (request adjustment of a power consumption amount) in order to avoid the occurrence of a shortage in amount of power supply when electricity supply is tight as a result of a temporary increase in power consumption amount due to a number of apparatuses that consume power operating at the same time.
The operability of such a system is improved by granting a financial incentive or other incentive to a consumer who has acceded such a power consumption amount adjustment request.
In this case, the adjustment request amount of the power consumption amount requested by the agent on the power supply side is so large that it cannot be acceded by the amount of adjustment by one consumer, and hence a management apparatus configured to manage a larger number of consumers is employed.
When the management apparatus receives the power consumption amount adjustment request from the agent on the power supply side, in order for the adjustment request to be acceded, for example, the management apparatus specifies a consumer who can accept the request from among a plurality of consumers managed by the management apparatus, and makes that consumer adjust their power consumption amount. Then, the consumer who has cooperated by adjusting their power consumption amount is granted the incentive.
Here, for example, in the example described in JP-A 2012-165513, a management apparatus periodically accepts schedules of achievable power consumption reduction amounts for each consumer, and predetermines a power reduction schedule for each of the consumers. Then, when the management apparatus receives a power consumption amount adjustment request from an agent on a power supply side, the management apparatus implements the power reduction schedules that have been predetermined for each of the consumers.